Price of Freedom
I'm glad Katherine is appealing! You'll definitely find out more about her soon enough.
Chapter 2
Abigail stood with her back casually against the wall of a small shop, her ledger open in her hand. She had studied her list of the souls to collect carefully, but she wanted to be certain of where she had to be that day.
Her week so far had been monotonous. She had not heard anything from General Affairs on whether her custom death scythe had been approved or rejected. She had filled out the application as soon as she was allowed to work on her own.
A tug at her hand tore her from her thoughts. She looked down and found herself staring into a pair of large green eyes. "Excuse me," the little girl said softly, her bottom lip quivering. "I can't find my mommy."
"Uh..." Abigail was not quite sure how to handle this situation. She did not even intend to stand against the wall long enough to be noticed but this small girl certainly had. She glanced down at her watch, not even sure she had time to help a child search for her mother.
Her eyes roamed around the streets, biting her lip. The little girl now clung to her hand, pulling on her golden curls with her other hand. Abigail sighed softly to herself and squatted to the girl's level. "Where was she last?" The girl let her curly hair loose and pointed down the street towards a small bookshop. "Let's go then."
As they neared the bookshop, they could hear a woman calling for her daughter, Sara. Sara released Abigail's hand and hurried to her mother. Before the sounds of the woman's scoldings could reach her, Abigail had slipped down a small side street, leaving Sara bewildered as to where her savior had vanished.
"That was quite kind of you."
Abigail jumped at the sound of the familiar voice but smiled as she spotted Undertaker leaning against one of the coffins outside his shop. "Hello Undertaker," she said. "I wouldn't call that "kind". I did nothing."
"Ah, but you did hold her hand~" he said, absently brushing a bit of dirt from the coffin he was leaning against. Abigail scowled at Undertaker, which seemed to amused him.
"Undertaker," she said with another look at her watch, "I really need to go..."
"Of course," he said, dismissing her with a wave. "Come back soon~ Oh, and tell your parents I said hello."
"I will," Abigail told him before she hurried down the street. She was worried about being late, having heard for years that it is important to reach a soul before a demon does. She had never encountered a demon before but her father's dislike of them made her worried about meeting one.
'The things that stay with you from childhood,' she thought to herself.
Her day was free of demons, but it was not exactly uneventful. An older man, despite knowing that he was dying, was willing to fight in an attempt to live longer. He had tried to scratch and shove her away but all he managed to do was remove one of her gloves. She retrieved it from underneath his bed after collecting his soul, putting it on with a sigh.
A carriage accident had caught the attention of several passersby. 'Humans,' she thought. 'Always ready to stop and stare but hardly willing to lift a hand.'
She managed to slip through the crowd unnoticed. Collecting the first and second souls was not difficult, but the third person, a young man in his mid twenties, was trapped under the carriage. As she knelt beside him, she heard a few people from the crowd warning her to be careful, that there was nothing she could do.
"Don't worry about me," she whispered, piercing the man's chest with her scythe. She reviewed his cinematic records, marked all of her pages as Completed, and left the humans alone to stare at the spot she had left in the blink of an eye.
Thankfully for Abigail, the rest of the souls on her list were easy to get. She stretched as she returned to the dispatch to do her paperwork before heading home for the night. As she passed her father's office, she paused, then knocked once at the door.
"Come in."
She slipped inside, shutting the door quickly behind her. She quickly crossed the room to plant a kiss on William's cheek. "Where's Mom?" she asked. "I wanted to see you both before going home."
"I believe she's still wandering around London," William replied.
Abigail fidgeted for a moment then asked, "How has she been?"
William thought for a moment and then said, "Restless I'd say. She isn't too thrilled to have you away from home but she seems to accept it."
"Good," Abigail murmured. "Would you tell her I said good night?" she asked. When William nodded, she kissed his cheek again. "Good night, Dad."
"Good night Abigail."
Katherine lurked among the shadows, idly watching the humans who wanted nothing more to get home to a nice, hot meal. Her maid dresses had been burned to fine ashes, and she had enjoyed that very much. Now she wore simple, dark clothing. Trousers, boots, shirt, coat, gloves, and a hat to hide her face. While she did not mind standing out in this crowd of possible meals, she did not want to draw too much attention to herself. She would later find herself purchasing several different outfits, all with Tatianna's money. She certainly had no use for it!
Katherine was starving. That prissy, spoiled girl had done little to soothe her appetite. But the fun was not in the meal, it was in the chase.